If the damage Holder has already done is not enough, he wants to inflict more damage by setting thousands of inmates free and lowering the sentences on many future criminals. He is sending out new instructions for all federal prosecutors to reduce the sentences on thousands of low-level offenses, many relating to drugs.

In the 1980s, the government launched its war on drugs and established strict guidelines for people convicted of drug-related crimes. Today’s prisons house nearly 220,000 inmates with many of them operating at 40% of capacity. Now Holder wants to weaken this system because too many people are going to prison and the social do gooders have made it impossible to pack them in like sardines.

Under Holder’s new sentencing guidelines, sentences will be suited to the individual’s conduct rather than the nature of the crime. In issuing his new orders, Holder said:

“We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate – not merely to convict, warehouse and forget.”

After the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, one of the men involved was Chuck Colson. Upon Colson’s release from prison, he started up Prison Fellowship Ministry. In an interview that I’ll never forget, he was asked for his opinion about America’s prison system and Colson said it is a failure because no one can make up their mind if it is supposed to be a place of punishment or rehabilitation. Then he said that too many people want it to be both and that is why it is failing. It needs to be one or the other, period.

No one listened to Colson and the prison systems continue to struggle with trying to rehabilitate convicts while at the same time punish them for their crimes. Historically, rehabilitation has a low success rate. Countries with strict prisons that focus exclusively on punishing convicts have lower overall crime rates.

Several decades ago, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (one of my favorite people) was ordered to release hundreds of prisoners to reduce overcrowding in the county jails. Arpaio refused to give prisoners early releases, stating that it would not be a deterrent to crime and that it would not be right to the victims of the crimes. Instead of releasing inmates early, he purchased a number of military tents and erected what has become known as tent city.

Arpaio housed less violent criminals in tent city where there was no air conditioning in the scorching hot summers. He also reduced their meals to two a day, used guard dogs to patrol the area and made them work on chain gangs, including women prisoners. At one time, he was spending more money feeding the guard dogs than he was feeding the prisoners.

One thing is for sure in Maricopa County (home to Phoenix and a population of 4 million people), if you get convicted of a crime and sent to the county jail, it’s not going to be a picnic and don’t count on the sheriff for any early releases due to overcrowding. If necessary, he’ll buy more tents.

In an America that has already become lawless, decadent, hedonistic, self-indulgent and self-centered, the last thing we need is lessoning the sentences on thousands of criminals. Holder forgets that many of these low-level drug offenders as he calls them rob, mug and assault other people to pay for their drug habits. Many of the victims are robbed not only of their money and possessions but of their dignity and sense of security as well. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are having their lives and families shattered by Holder’s low-level drug offenders. I don’t consider this to be low-level anything.

The only thing Holder’s actions are going to accomplish is to place more drug addicts and dealers back on the streets which will in turn victimize more Americans. Our streets and homes will be less safe than ever before and thousands more Americans will become prisoners in their own homes out of fear. Obviously, Eric Holder has never dealt with the victims and probably doesn’t care.

Perhaps Holder’s actions are to make it easier on himself when he is convicted of his numerous crimes and sentenced to prison.

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